Enjoying EarthSky? Subscribe.

The island of Tristan da Cunha

This photo, taken by an astronaut aboard the International Space Station, shows the volcanic island Tirstan da Cunha in the southern Atlantic Ocean.

Astronaut photograph ISS034-E-41528 was acquired on February 6, 2013, with a Nikon D3S digital camera using a 400 millimeter lens, and is provided by the ISS Crew Earth Observations experiment and Image Science & Analysis Laboratory, Johnson Space Center.

The island of Tristan da Cunha lies about 2,300 miles (3,700 km) from Antarctica, 1,700 miles (2,800 km) from the southern tip of Africa, and 1,900 miles (3,000 km) from South America.

This eight-mile-wide (13 km) island is labeled as a shield volcano – a volcainc structure with a low profile, composed of silica-poor lava. The last known eruption of Tristan da Cunha took place in 1961–1962 and forced the evacuation of the only settlement on the island, Edinburgh of the Seven Seas, on the northern coastline (obscured by clouds in this image). The town is considered to be the most remote permanent settlement on Earth, with its nearest neighbor located 2,173 kilometers (1,347 miles) to the northeast on the island of St. Helena.